UTAR receives Kinect and others from Hilti

UTAR received two units of Microsoft Kinect and other hardware for research purposes from Hilti Asia IT Services Sdn Bhd at a ceremony for the signing of memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two parties at UTAR Petaling Jaya Campus on 12 April 2013.

The hardware sponsored by Hilti were Microsoft Surface Pro, Samsung Galaxy Note II, Samsung Galaxy S3, Nokia Lumia 920, and remote control vehicle and video transmitter.

Signing the MoU were UTAR President Ir Prof Academician Dato' Dr Chuah Hean Teik and Hilti Managing Director and Head of IT Asia Dr Christoph Baeck, while UTAR Vice President (Internationalization and Academic Development) Prof Dr Ewe Hong Tat and Hilti Application Platform Services Group Lead Ng Eng Siong signed as witnesses.

"Plans are already in place for several collaborative activities such as the Hilti-UTAR Innovation Challenge 2013, postgraduate scholarships for Masters and PhDs, guest lectures, boot camps and IT based creative projects," said Prof Chuah, adding that the collaboration was a good move in the right direction for both parties and for UTAR students.

Dr Baeck said, "Excellent products require excellent employees, and we want to give our fair share of grooming to the right people; we want to do that with UTAR students."  He later handed over the sponsored hardware to Dr Liew Soung Yue, the Dean of UTAR Faculty of Information and Communication Technology.

This MoU between UTAR and Hilti Asia IT Services will initiate joint projects involving collaborative research to share expertise, facilitate mutual visits by staff to participate in conferences, talks, workshops and attachments, facilitate exchange visits for publications, professional and curriculum development, student internships and academic innovation.

Among the current activities agreed between the two parties are innovation based challenges for ICT such as the Hilti-UTAR Innovation Challenge, comprising the Hilti Excellent ICT Project Award with a cash prize of RM2500 for the champion and RM1500 for the runner-up and the Hilti Excellent Student Award with a prize of a Windows 8 Tablet and a possible offer of apprenticeship at Hilti Corporate Headquarter overseas. The four criteria of this innovation challenge award are courage, commitment, teamwork and integrity.

Other collaborative activities include the Hilti scholarships for postgraduate studies amounting to RM10,000 per year for Masters and RM20,000 per year for PhD. Hilti is also offering a guaranteed place for a UTAR student at the Hilti SAP Boot camp. There will also be exchange guest lectures for sharing of expertise between the two institutions with Hilti providing lectures on Supply chain Management/Prediction and UTAR on Triz.

Prof Chuah (second from right) exchanging MoU documents with Dr Baeck while Ng (left) and Prof Ewe look on.

Dr Baeck presenting a souvenir Hilti drill to Prof Chuah

UTAR and Hilti representatives at the ceremony